Apple's event is going on right now - and most of the new stuff already leaked weeks and months ahead of time. So, we're getting an iPhone 5S, an iPhone 5C, and iOS7 will be available later this month. I like the design of the 5C more than of the 5S; it's more playful, colourful - harking back to the coloured iMacs and PowerMac G3s. Too bad it doesn't come in red.

The fingerprint sensor in the 5S is interesting, but I wonder how accurate it will be in the real world; on top of that, with all the NSA news, I'm not particularly keen on Apple reading my fingerprint all the time. Supposedly, applications don't have access to it and it's not stored in the cloud, but I have little to no trust for companies.

The biggest news for me is the fact that the iPhone 5S has a new chip - the A7 - which has the honour of being the first 64bit chip inside a smartphone. iOS7 and first party Apple applications are all 64bit, and Xcode obviously supports it. While this obviously future-proofs the platform for more RAM, I wonder what other motives are involved here. ARM desktops and laptops, perhaps?

I doubt 64bit will provide much benefit today, but you have to hand it to Apple: at least they're done with the transition before it's even needed.

The iPhone is NOT a high-end experience compared to Android. The dependency on iTunes is a major PITA. The non customizable home screen sucks -- I want a calendar widget, a facebook widget, an email widget, a music player widget, you know, MY custom screen. I find email on Android much better than on iOS, and maps WITH NAVIGATION work perfectly on ANY edition of Android, unlike iOS, where Google itself had to come to the rescue. I find Android apps tend to be far more consistent in the use of menus and options, and there are less restrictions in the use of multitasking. And as for aesthetics, it looks to me like the much vaunted Jony Yves (or whatever) has tastefully photocopied the design book for Android's Holo look; good for us, anyway, to wave goodbye to fake vinyl.

With Android you can choose your phone cheap or expensive, large or small, plastic or glass, silver or blue, you can in general swap your battery when it is discharged or old, or pop in inexpensive memory cards if space runs out. With Apple, you have to go for their one-size-fits-all attitude and act as if Apple size is all you ever wanted and as is you dearly enjoy being herded down Apple's path.

Now, iOS is by no means a POS, and there is some extremely nice software for it that is sorely lacking for Android: iMovies and GarageBand, for example, are eye-poppingly good, maybe even reason enough to pinch your nose and dive into the Apple's ecosystem; I cannot understand how come Google does not invest in bringing out something vaguely competitive with that for phone and tablet use.

It is also good in iOS how you always know the price of apps in the store. With Android, they all claim to be free, but are invariably limited versions with unstated limits and unstated price to unlimit.